Court hearing 27.3.2018 Bamberg: Solidarity against the state legitimation of security violence on refugees - Stop the criminalisation and persecution of Kumba and Ndiame

As one amongst many cases of unjust criminalisation of refugees in Bavarian transit camps, Aarona Kumba and Moussa Ndiame will 27.03.18 be facing trial on false charges for grievous bodily harm (gefährliche Körperverletzung) on private security company employees at the AEO Bamberg.

In September 2017 Kumba and Ndiame were witnesses to a violent attack on a young Senegalese asylum seeker, I.Kujabi, by a group security staff members of the company Fair Guards in the transit camp. As Kumba approached one of the security employees to denounce the brutality with a demand that the police be called in to handle the situation, another security officer suddenly reacted with using pepper spray on him. Kumba was then pushed to the floor and handcuffed by the securities. Still blinded by the gas, the security employees dragged Kumba and the badly wounded Kujabi into the back room where they continued to brutalise them as they waited for the police to arrive.

Arriving at the scene, the police only registered the statements of the aggressors, that is, of the supposed “security personnel” and ignored the statements of the victims. The latter were taken into police custody to execute the usual process of criminalising refugees.

The abused refugees were some months later served with penalty orders (Strafbefehl) with a fine to the amount of 1200 euro for alleged grievous bodily harm (Körperverletzung) on security personnel, even if the reverse was in fact the case. Kumba and Ndiame declared their stand against this sentence and determined to challenge the case in court.The refugees state that they intend to use their personal experience to mobilise against the many other cases of abuses by security personnel in the different transit camps in Bavaria.

Some of the witnesses against Kumba und Ndiame have since last year been suspended from their work as securities in the AEO due to a pending criminal investigation on charges of homicide and grievous bodily harm. These security employees were involved in the violent attacks not only on Kumba and Kujabi but also on other refugees in the AEO camp in Bamberg in September 2017.

We are calling on activists and friends to show solidarity and come to observe this repeated act of state impunity and legitimation of violence against refugees in Germany.